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Antony and Cleopatra
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Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I, Scene 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of death by suicide. This guide also refers to the source text’s use of racist slurs against Romani people.
Two Roman soldiers named Philo and Demetrius discuss their concern that the Roman general Mark Antony is neglecting his duty to Rome because he has fallen in love with the Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra. Cleopatra teases Antony after he receives messages from the young Octavius Caesar and from his wife, Fulvia, telling him that he ought to return to them. Antony refuses to hear the messengers, telling Cleopatra that he prefers to spend time with her and enjoy the pleasures of life. They leave together to spend the night in leisure, and Philo and Demetrius lament that Antony no longer cares about his responsibilities as a triumvir, one of the three main leaders of his home country.
Act I, Scene 2 Summary
Cleopatra’s advisor Alexas brings in a soothsayer to tell fortunes. The queen’s maids, Charmian and Iras, learn from the soothsayer that they will outlive Cleopatra. They interpret this to mean that they will live very long lives. However, when they ask if they will bear children or marry great kings, the soothsayer responds that they will only if their wishes could grow wombs. Cleopatra enters the scene, complaining that Antony is no longer in the mood for entertainment because he has received new messages from Rome. She leaves to avoid Antony as he approaches with messengers.
Antony learns from the messengers that his wife, Fulvia, and brother-in-law, Lucius, were involved in a revolt against Caesar. When the messenger suggests that Caesar’s enemies are gaining military ground while Antony stalls in Egypt, Antony commands him to speak openly about his faults. Another messenger reports that Fulvia has died. Antony feels conflicted about her death because he is now free to love Cleopatra, but he respects his wife’s ambitious character. Her death reminds him of his political ambitions in Rome. Encouraged by his soldier Enobarbus, Antony decides to leave Cleopatra and return to Rome so that he can put down an attempted rebellion by Sextus Pompey, the son of a former enemy.
Act I, Scene 3 Summary
Cleopatra is angry with Antony for neglecting her and plots about how she can play with his emotions by appearing to be in the opposite mood. Antony comes and informs her that he plans to return to Rome. Cleopatra tries to make him feel guilty for abandoning her, questioning if anything he says is true since he has been unfaithful to his wife. Antony tells her that Fulvia is dead and he is going to Rome to put down a rebellion by supporters of Sextus Pompey, but this does not placate Cleopatra, who instead laments that he does not appear to be grieving his wife and therefore would treat her death in the same heartless manner. Antony leaves, swearing that he still loves Cleopatra.
Act I, Scene 4 Summary
Back in Rome, Caesar talks with his fellow triumvir, Lepidus, about Mark Antony’s luxurious lifestyle in Egypt. While Lepidus claims that Antony is such a great man that his faults do not severely limit him, Caesar is skeptical. He condemns Antony for being drunk and pleasure-seeking while Rome is in crisis. However, even Caesar recalls some of the great military deeds and the discomforts Antony readily endured as a soldier. Learning that Pompey’s army is rallying against them, Caesar and Lepidus prepare to go and face them.
Act I, Scene 5 Summary
Cleopatra awaits Antony’s return, speculating with her maids Charmian and Iras about what he might be doing at that very moment. A messenger arrives with a gift from Antony—a pearl that he kissed before giving to her. Cleopatra asks if he seemed happy or sad, and the messengers reports that he seemed to be of an even temperament. Cleopatra interprets this to mean that he could not look sad or else he would impact the morale of his troops, but he was not happy, because his heart remained in Egypt. She tells her servants to prepare more messengers so that she can write to Antony every day that he is away. Charmian playfully reminds her mistress of when she used to write love letters to Julius Caesar, and Cleopatra scolds her, saying that she was more ruthless and less wise in her youth.
Act I Analysis
The first Act of Antony and Cleopatra establishes the tension between Mark Antony’s past as a great military commander and his present romantic infatuation with Cleopatra, introducing the theme of The Clash of Cultural Values. The beginning of the play presents Antony as disenchanted with Roman society, preferring the pleasures he has in Egypt to the turbulent politics of his homeland. He dismisses Roman messengers in favor of a night of luxury with Cleopatra, announcing, “Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space. / Kingdoms are clay. Our dungy earth alike / Feeds beast as man” (1.1.38-41). This quote exemplifies how Antony’s disregard for Rome is intentional and motivated by his altered cultural philosophy. He ignores Rome because he believes that kingdoms and empires are ephemeral, and that one land is as good as another. He seems to consider Roman political competition to be mostly pointless, based on random whims rather than genuine value, and he describes his fellow citizens as, “Our slippery people / Whose love is never linked to the deserver / Till his deserts are past” (1.2.201-3). These scenes indicate that Antony is not simply distracted by Cleopatra and therefore neglecting his duty—he is questioning the very cultural values that Rome is built upon.
Cleopatra presents Antony with a different perspective on what should be valuable to him, emphasizing the eternal and heavenly qualities of love. While Antony frames glory and imperial ambition as temporal, Cleopatra suggests that romantic love is a better pursuit, reminding him, “Eternity was in our lips and eyes / Bliss in our brows’ bent; none our parts so poor / But was a race of heaven” (1.3.44-46). This contrast between the mutability of fame and the constancy of love indicates that the central conflict of the play is the result of different values as well as competition for power.
The end of Act I notably switches to Caesar’s perspective, and his speech indicates that his distrust of Antony originates in their differing moral perspectives. Caesar particularly focuses on Antony’s appetites for food, drink, and sex, condemning these appetites as vices that rob Antony of his former glory. While there is nothing about his appetite that is inherently disruptive to his role as a military commander of Rome’s eastern provinces, Caesar frames good soldiership as being innately tied to abstinence and moderation. He recalls Antony’s time as a successful soldier, praising Antony as he recalls, “Thou didst drink / The stale of horses and the gilded puddle / Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign / The roughest berry on the rudest hedge” (1.4.70-73). This further indicates how the issue at stake in the play is related to The Clash of Cultural Values rather than a specific political policy.
The first Act also establishes the recurring motif of divination, which is used to foreshadow the play’s tragic ending (See: Symbols & Motifs). As Cleopatra’s maid Charmian playfully asks a soothsayer about her future, he replies, “You shall outlive the lady whom you serve” (1.2.33). While this is technically true, Charmian will only outlive Cleopatra by a few moments. This creates a moment of dramatic irony, where the audience becomes aware that the story will end tragically, while the characters misinterpret the vague prophetic language.
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